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She’s on the run. He’s as steady as they come. Karma is calling. And so is the mob.

New York Times BESTSELLING AUTHOR, Victoria Danann, adds an unlikely, but weirdly charming romance to the SSMC series.”

Gin: How did I end up almost two hundred thousand dollars in debt? It wasn’t as hard as it sounds.

I went to Colombia and studied anthropology. The perfect background to get a great job. Right? Okay. It was a stupid choice. As it turns out, one of several. But I was still a teenager when I picked a major. I’ve since learned that brains aren’t fully developed until years later. A lot of good that information does me now. So I ended up answering phones at a third rate magazine. In New Jersey. When a duffel bag full of big bills showed up in my gym locker, I did what anybody with student loans would do. I paid them off.

It turns out that the money didn’t come from my fairy godmother after all. More like godfather and he’s the furthest thing from a fairy tale. Some goons stashed the bag in the wrong locker. For the mob. It probably won’t surprise you to learn they want it back. So, again, I did what anybody would do. I ran. All the way to the Texas Hill Country. I mean, they wouldn’t follow me there. Right? It’s practically the Outback. Right?

Raze: It was Bike Night at my place, which meant it was crowded. But when she came through the door, she stood out like a neon sign. I didn’t care that she looked lost or that she had unbelievably suckable curves. And it didn’t occur to me to worry when she looked back over her shoulder. I guess I figured she was looking for a boyfriend or a husband who, if he was smart, would always be real close behind.

The fact was, I needed help. Marjorie called in with some lame excuse, which meant she was fired. Employees can’t bail on Bike Night. It’s a cardinal sin. I don’t really know what that is ’cause I’m not Catholic, but it’s bad. I said, “You got any experience slingin’ drinks?” She shook her head. I gave up a disgusted sigh. “You good with people?” She gave me a cute little smirk that’s probably served her well up to now and shrugged. I shook my head, knowing I’d be sorry, and handed her an apron.

She took it, looked at it like she didn’t know what to do with it. After a second of two she raised those big blue eyes to mine and said, “I don’t have a place to stay.” I looked away so she wouldn’t think she had me by the balls and let go with a stream of cuss words in my head.

“Do a good job and you can sleep in the studio in the back. For tonight,” I said. She gave me a hug like she was grabbing onto a lifesaver and filled my nose with her rainy green apple feminine shampoo smell. ‘Course I didn’t show it, but that hug knocked me on my ass. She was just some woman coming off the road. I knew this. But there was something… I pushed her away. “Just for tonight.” My voice was gruff, sounded harsh. Good. She needed to know my Roadhouse was no plushy crash pad.I was firm. I was clear.

Wasn’t I?

Get ready for a fire and ice story that proves love is no respecter of plans.

TEASE! TEASE! TEASE! Here’s an excerpt to get you excited about the fact that there IS life after Xmas. Coming December 28th. PREORDER NOW! This book will be available everywhere until December 30th. Then it will be AMAZON ONLY!

***would you do ANYTHING for love?***

Brant shrugged a big shoulder. “Too much green to turn away even if I need to do it myself. Arnold said the dad could have taken out a contract for what he’s paying us. And he’s right. It’s a chunk of change.”
When Arnold had blurted that out in meeting, he’d gotten several awkward minutes of silent stares from around the club table. They were bikers, but they weren’t killers. Even back in the days when they operated outside the law, they hadn’t been killers. At present they were businessmen who happened to like bikes and hold a certain disdain for authority and rules of all kinds.
“What’s involved? Pick her up and fly her here?”
Brant laughed and shook his head. “If that was all there was to it, guys wouldn’t be ducking around corners avoiding me. The man has hired the club to execute the disappearance of his daughter and keep her in the wind until after the divorce is final.”
“Why does she need to disappear until after the divorce is finalized?”
“The soon-to-be ex-husband is dangerous and greedy. The girl’s father thinks he may try to have her killed before the divorce goes through. He suspects this man of devising some clever means that would give him an airtight alibi while also making him eligible to inherit her trust fund.”
“Who is it?”
“The client?”
“Yes.”
“Severn Carmichael.” Brand’s eyebrows went up and he whistled. “I suspected you’d know who he is.”
“Our enterprises have touched circuits now and then.”
“He know who you are?”
“He probably knows who I am, just like I know who he is, but we’ve never met.”
Brant seemed satisfied with that. “What do you think?”
“Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. I need to pick her up somewhere in New York, bring her to you, and make sure she’s not seen or followed on the way.”
“In a nutshell.”
“What aren’t you telling me? Why isn’t it safer to shelter in place wherever she is?”
“He’s scared. Really scared. Thinks this guy can get through any defense he can mount.”
Brandon nodded thoughtfully. “When did you tell him we’d get her?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“Day after tomorrow? Forty eight hours to come up with a plan and make arrangements to be away from the office?”
“Security will work with you on a plan. Taking time off work? Come on. You’re the boss, aren’t you? You want the job or not? If you do, I’ll call a meeting and get a vote on patching you.”
Brandon hadn’t realized how badly he wanted that until it was offered. He’d thought it was something that would never be within his grasp, but suddenly there it was. He didn’t really have a choice. Once in a lifetime offer to get the only thing he wanted that he didn’t already have?
Hell, yes.
“Hell, yes.”
Brant smiled as they stood up. He slapped Brandon on the shoulder and it made Brand’s heart ache for the years he’d missed not having his father in his life.
“I’ll call you later with the verdict,” Brant said.
They mounted their rides and ignited the engines. The noise made all the patrons of Chuy’s turn and look. The men wished they were on those bikes. The women wished they were sitting behind the men on those bikes.
Brant turned west on Bee Caves. Brandon saluted as he turned east.

My photographer, Invicta’s Art Photography, took my model of choice for this project, Colin Lenn, into the Las Vegas desert to get this shot for the Carnal cover and I love it.

The first book in the EXILED series is tied to Black Swan with Rosie, aka Elora Rose Storm.

The angel, Kellareal, stopped the genocide of generations of hybrids, who had been bred for research and spent their entire lives imprisoned. Against orders, he spirited them away to a place where they would have freedom and purpose.

In a vindictive fit, Rosie Storm asked her mother’s friend, Kellareal, for a place to hide from her boyfriend and teach him a lesson. Kellareal knew just the place for Rosie to grow up and learn temper control among other things. The land of Exiled.

How do you mend a broken heart? – Kellareal

Elora Rose Storm, otherwise known as Rosie, left her dimension in a fit of immaturity over not getting her way. Some might say the behavior was easier to forgive in light of the fact that she was, chronologically, only fourteen-months-old. Her witch / demon genes had accelerated her physical and intellectual growth, but her emotional equilibrium lagged behind.

The Exiled were a race of human hybrids, who, for generations, had lived their entire lives as slave test subjects. When they became perceived as too dangerous to keep, their creators planned a genocide. Against Council orders, Kellareal intervened and moved them to a dimension where they would have the opportunity to establish balance between the human population and a race of stronger, faster, fiercer hybrids who preyed on them.

Rosie thought she was getting a few weeks of asylum. The last thing she was expecting was to meet someone like Carnal.

Two brothers, unknown to each other, on a crash trajectory with destiny and two broken hearts.

TWO PRINCES: The Biker and The Billionaire, Sons of Sanctuary MC, Book 1

Brigid was a graduate student at the University of Texas. It wasn’t hard getting her thesis approved, but finding a Hill Country motorcycle club willing to give her access to their lifestyle was starting to look impossible. Then she got a lead. A friend of a friend had a cousin with family ties to The Sons of Sanctuary. Perfect. Or so she thought.

What she wanted was information to prove a scholarly proposition. The last thing she had in mind was falling for one of the members of the club. Especially since she was a feminist academic out to prove that motorcycle clubs are organized according to the same structure as primitive tribal society.

Brash was standing in line at the H.E.B. Market when his world tipped on its axis. While waiting his turn to check out, his gaze had wandered to the magazine display and settled on the new issue of “NOW”. The image on the cover, although GQ’d up in an insanely urbane way, was… him.

After reading the article, he threw some stuff in a duffle and left his only home, a room at The Sons of Sanctuary clubhouse, with a vague explanation about needing a couple of days away. He left his truck at the Austin airport and caught a plane for New York, on a mission to find a mysterious guy walking around with his face.

BONUS PREQUEL: Intro to the Sons of Sanctuary MC, A Season in Gemini, is included with TWO PRINCES.

TWO PRINCES EXCERPT:

“Sir?” Brash Fornight gradually became aware that someone behind him in the grocery checkout line was trying to get his attention. “Sir?” He refocused and glanced behind him. The woman leaning on a cart overflowing with chip bags and cookie boxes nodded toward the cashier indicating that it was his turn to move forward. Brash looked her in the eye and had to give her props. Most people wouldn’t have the balls to try to herd a guy wearing Sons of Sanctuary MC leather.

The club employed a woman who cooked and did grocery shopping several times a week as part of her job description, but Brash didn’t like to explain his relentless craving for peanuts and he liked being teased about it even less. He didn’t know whether it was the Vitamin B or the fat or just because he liked the taste, but he couldn’t imagine going a day without them.

That’s how he came to be standing statue still In the grocery checkout line, being prompted by some woman with more nerve than sense. While he was waiting, his eyes drifted over the magazine display and settled on the cover of “NOW”, on the Most Eligible Bachelor edition no less. The debonair figure staring back was wearing Brash’s own face and body. He looked different with short hair and a four thousand dollar suit with the shirt fashionably open at the neckline, but the similarity was inescapable.

On impulse he grabbed the magazine and tossed it onto the conveyor belt with his week’s stash of peanuts.

He stuffed the bags into the saddlebags of his bike and roared toward home, nervously tapping his fingers on handlebars at red lights, riding on shoulders to keep from slowing down. He was anxious to get to the privacy of his own room and read about Branach St. Germaine.

Two beers, one jar of peanuts, and one “NOW” article later, Brash was sitting on the edge of his bed looking at the wall, seeing nothing but his own heavy thoughts. He pulled out his phone, looked up a website, and waited on hold for ten minutes to hear the time of the next flight from Austin to New York.

There was a flight to Newark in a little over three hours. He looked at his watch and calculated the time it would take to drive from Dripping Springs at that time of day. As he booked the flight, he stood up, walked to the small closet, grabbed a duffel bag, and began shoving stuff into it. Ten minutes later, he closed his door and locked it, threw the duffel over his shoulder, and headed straight for the office downstairs. He dropped the duffel on the hallway floor beside the closed door and knocked.

“Yeah?” Brash looked inside, glad that his dad was by himself, and stepped in. “What’s up?”

“I’m takin’ personal time, Pop. Gonna be gone for a couple of days.”

“What the hell is ‘personal time’?”

The gruffness made Brash smile. “It means I’m not gonna be here if you call and I’m not tellin’ you why.”

The Sons of Sanctuary President looked up at Brash, over the top of his readers, and narrowed his eyes. “You got a secret?”

“Everybody’s got secrets.”

Brandon Fornight studied his son for a minute. “True enough. Is it the kind of secret that could affect this club?”

Brash shook his head. “Don’t see how.”

“Well, then. See you… When did you say you’d be back?”

“I didn’t.”

“Bein’ purposefully vague, are you?”

Brash grinned. “That’s why they call it personal time. But I expect to be back Friday.”

“You gonna have your phone with you?” When Brash nodded, Bran looked back down at his ledger in a deliberately dismissive gesture. “Well, get outta here then.”

Brash parked his bike in the airplane hangar. The structure had already been on the property when the club had bought it and turned it into a compound twenty years earlier. They used part of it for vehicle maintenance and repair and part for parking.

Some of the guys who were working looked over and shot curious glances his way when Brash threw his duffel into his pickup and started it up, but it wasn’t their way to ask questions. The Sons figured that if somebody wanted you to know something, they’d tell you.

Brash took a cab to a midtown hotel, wondering all the way why human beings would choose to live in such a place. As he slid his credit card across the hotel counter to the agent on duty, he glanced at the name, Brandon Fornight. It seemed unlikely that it was a coincidence that that the mysterious look-alike’s first name began with the same four letters. He ordered room service and pulled out his laptop.

Getting intel on the guy didn’t take advanced ops. Within an hour Brash knew where Brannach St. Germaine worked, what kind of car he drove, what kind of women he dated, who his tailor was, and where he liked to dine. There was no shortage of photos online, but the one that grabbed his attention wasn’t one of the many with starlets or debutantes on his arm. It was the one taken with his arm around his mother as they were arriving together for some red carpet fundraiser. Brash had an almost irresistible compulsion to reach up and touch her face on the screen in front of him.

The knock on the door signaled that room service had arrived. It cost a fortune, but looked and tasted like shit. So he closed the computer and went out for a walk to clear his head and find something edible.